


Brotherly Bonding via Goon Fighting

by dottie_wan_kenobi



Series: Batfam Fics [26]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Action, Background Dick/Babs, Brothers, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd is Robin, POV Jason Todd, Platonic love confessions, author cannot write action scenes I'm sorry, injuries, mentioned Jason/Artemis Crock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28208925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottie_wan_kenobi/pseuds/dottie_wan_kenobi
Summary: Jason wasn’t expecting it to go as wrong as it did. Missions going wrong was basically a given at that point—you could plan and plan, but there was simply no being prepared for everything—but this? This went beyond the normal levels of screwed up.He and Dick were sent back home to Gotham, Batman having called them in for help with staking out two of Two-Face’s caches. It was supposed to be a brief thing, something he needed extra—but trusted—help with. He had taken one of the locations, bringing Babs with him, while Dick and Jason were sent to the other one, which was assumed to be the lesser of the two. It was annoying that he and Dick were being sent off to the lame one, but once they got there, his mind changed a little bit. It was sort of nice, sneaking around alongside Dick, who felt more and more like a brother as time had gone on.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Batfam Fics [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1231787
Comments: 2
Kudos: 64
Collections: BatFam Winter Gift Exchange 2020





	Brotherly Bonding via Goon Fighting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [millenniumrobin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/millenniumrobin/gifts).



> Name: The Human (MillenniumRobin - Kay's human)  
> Fav character: Jason Mother Fucking Todd  
> Three Favorite relationships (romo and non-romo marked) Dick/Babs (Romantic) Jason/Artemis Crock (Romantic) (Yeah - I know...) Jason and Dick (non romatic)  
> What are three things you love to see? (Think tropes or moods) Angst, Fighting back to back, Professing love because they THINK they're about to die  
> Any important nopes? No Batcest between brother
> 
> \--
> 
> Happy holidays, MillenniumRobin!! I tried to incorporate all of your prompts together but it ended up not as angsty as I would have liked. Still, I hope you like it <3
> 
> Thank you to you-know-who-you-are for looking this over for me and telling me it wasn't stupid <3
> 
> Sorry for the dumb title lol I am not good at them
> 
> *edit 12/24: now that the collection is revealed, I've put this fic in my batfam series :fingerguns:

Jason wasn’t expecting it to go as wrong as it did. Missions going wrong was basically a given at that point—you could plan and plan, but there was simply no being prepared for everything—but this? This went beyond the normal levels of screwed up.

He and Dick were sent back home to Gotham, Batman having called them in for help with staking out two of Two-Face’s caches. It was supposed to be a brief thing, something he needed extra—but trusted—help with. He had taken one of the locations, bringing Babs with him, while Dick and Jason were sent to the other one, which was assumed to be the lesser of the two. It was annoying that he and Dick were being sent off to the lame one, but once they got there, his mind changed a little bit. It was sort of nice, sneaking around alongside Dick, who felt more and more like a brother as time had gone on. 

(On his side, at least. He had no idea what Dick thought of him beyond the compliments and direct pointers given during training and missions. Dick was at least polite, but the version of him Jason saw was a far cry from the peeks he’d gotten of Dick hanging out with the older heroes. Once, he’d seen Dick and Babs laughing together, all in a pile on the couch, and he’d realized Dick had never laughed with or even at him. He wasn’t sure how to take that thought, even now.

All that to say that, yeah, he thought of Dick as a brother. A brother-figure. A potential one. But there was a distance there between himself and Dick and he didn’t know what to do with it, didn’t know whether Dick had put it there or not. He couldn’t broach it, either, not yet ready to argue about it when he didn’t have even footing. So he said nothing, watching out for any clues, mostly avoiding his own feelings on the matter unless he was alone and could safely sift through them.)

Jason had already learned a lot in his years as Robin, becoming talented in his own right, but watching a master like Dick at work was hard to look away from. He followed Dick to the location, and as they staked it out, he hardly heard let alone saw Nightwing. The only assurance he had that he was even there was the sound of his breathing in his ear, steady and muted. 

Once they were positive the cache—which was hidden, supposedly, in the basement of an abandoned crack house—was empty of people and booby traps, they slunk inside, taking the front door. There were two windows on the front of the house, and neither of them was stupid enough to think Dent wouldn’t take advantage of that. 

The inside was, in a word, gross. Everything smelled musty and old, puddles covering the floor in various spots, the walls and ceilings cracked. Needles and other paraphernalia littered every dusty surface. 

Jason screwed up his nose, trying not to sneeze. It didn’t look different from any other place he’d seen, and with the thick boots and gloves he was wearing, he wasn’t concerned about getting hurt, not really. But his eyes were left stinging by all the dust and mold, and he turned to Dick, hoping they could do this quickly. Both for the safety of his health and so they could get back to the Mountain and Jason could complain about everything to someone who would understand: his girlfriend, Artemis. At least she wouldn’t look at him like he was crazy and pitiable like the rest all did.

Dick scanned everything with a careful eye, the only indication that he was affected by the smells too being the tightness in his jaw. Evidently—and thankfully—he didn’t see anything either, though he made a few more circuits of the room just to be sure. He glanced at Jason, and Jason thought maybe he would say something in that mentor voice of his, or a quip about how rank everything was. But all he said was, “Come on, let’s go check the other rooms first,” and turned towards the hallway.

Jason huffed a little sigh, partly to annoy him but mostly because he was sure the rest of the house would be just as bad. Still, he followed Dick back, taking the opposite room from him. More dust, more needles, a few stains on the carpets in questionable colors and shapes. The most interesting thing was an old television, short and fat, which had its screen shattered. Glass littered the floor, dull in the low light, though he could see a few bigger pieces.

He took a few steps closer, seeing something shiny on one of the pieces—liquid, maybe, a dark liquid. Blood. He was stopped short, however, by a sound across the hall, obviously not made by Dick. It was loud and wooden, not dissimilar to the sound of a trap door smacking against the wall. (A very specific sound, yes, but one he’d heard many times by this point in his life.) Jason would have thought it was just Dick finding something, except that he could still hear Dick’s breathing over their comms, and the heavy puffs were indicative of a fight.

A thump like a body hitting the floor confirmed his suspicions.

Jason quickly and quietly exited the room he was in and crossed over to the other room, expecting Dick to be standing over whatever person he just punched out. Instead, he found himself being immediately aimed at, the gun in the goon’s hand steady, his finger on the trigger. Did he not know gun safety, or was he prepared to shoot? It didn’t matter. Jason stilled for a moment, taking in the rest of the room. There was only one guy on the ground, and it was Dick— twitching and face down, he didn’t react to Jason coming in at all. Several other goons stood over him, zip-tying his wrists. A few feet away, there was a trap door—he could see rickety steps leading down to who knew where (the cache, of course, he thought with a curse)—and the dust was all disturbed. He wondered if Dick had found it before the men came out of it. Not that it mattered, really. 

What did matter was that Dick needed his help. It was so rare that anything took him down. Jason kept his guard up, aware that these must not be the normal calibre of goon. Smarter or better armed or both. He had to be careful.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way, kid,” the one with the gun said.

Guh. How cliche. Jason didn’t bother to reply, instead turning his eyes back to the other goons. He didn’t see any guns in plain sight, but he could tell two of them had hip holsters.

Not a good idea, then, to fight the guy in front of him. The others would probably shoot Dick before he could get to them.

Okay, that was fine. There were plans in place for situations like these. Jason was shorter than he liked to admit, but it played to his advantage—slowly, he put his hands up, making himself shake just enough for the goons to see it. 

There were different types of goons. Some liked to hurt people and would’ve seen Jason’s shaking as a good thing, proof of how big and bad they were. Some were down on their luck and needed money they could only find in less savory pursuits, and would’ve softened once they saw Jason was scared. This guy was somewhere in the middle, snorting derisively like it was annoying. 

“Don’t think I’ll go soft on you just ‘cause you’re a kid,” he said gruffly. “One wrong move and I’ll shoot. Won’t bother tazing you like we did to ‘Wing over there. Scotty, c’mere, tie him up.”

The one he assumed was Scotty didn’t make any smart ass comments, just came over and wrenched Jason’s arms behind his back. He had no small amount of glee in it, and Jason had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. Another type of goon, then: the ones who hated the Bats and loved to have power, even if it was only imagined, over them. Those were so annoying, and difficult to deal with.

“Wh-what are you gonna do to us?” Jason asked, making his voice small and scared. Everyone underestimated Robin. Thought surely a kid couldn’t do the things they all said he could. 

The first guy gave him a hard look. “Taking you to see the bossman.”

“Then we’ll have some fun,” Scotty said, finishing with the tight zip cuffs. He pushed Jason’s shoulder, and Jason let himself stumble, catching his balance at the last second. All of the goons laughed, and Jason grit his teeth like he was embarrassed.

Guys like this were so stupid. They never learned. They never had any idea that the Bats could act like award-winners, that everything was fake, that this ruse was to lull them into relaxing and that Jason was obviously going to take advantage of that. He glanced at Dick again, wondering—hoping—that that was just an act too. There was a more deliberate twitch of his fingers than the one he saw earlier, and Jason looked away, feeling a bit reassured that his brother would be coming around soon.

“Come on,” one of the others snapped, roughly grabbing Jason’s arm and forcing him towards the steps. He went along with it, not fighting back, letting the guy think he had the upper hand. Behind him, he heard the others talking, and after a few moments, someone pulling Dick along the floor. His shoes scraped against the wooden floor, dragging, and Jason tried not to think about it. 

He asked himself,  _ What would Nightwing do? _ Probably somehow manage to take them all out and then rescue his fallen ally without even breaking a sweat. And Jason? He could do that. He  _ would  _ do that. But he wanted to be in a more secure spot than a rickety staircase first, and the whole point of this anyway was to find Two-Face’s cache. Instead they would be facing Two-Face. He had to deal with that. Then he could kick all the goons’s asses and rescue Dick.

When they finally came to the end of the steps, Jason shivered, actually meaning it this time. It was freezing down there, and both much bigger and much smaller than he would’ve imagined. The house really wasn’t that big itself, so he’d expected the cache would be about the same size. Instead, it ran below the yard of the next house over. 

Compared to the Cave, it was tiny, especially with the amount of goons stuffed inside. There were three in each corner, and in the middle—on a stained loveseat—sat Two-Face, dressed impeccably in a suit and flanked on either side by two more goons. He had a deceptively calm look on his face, and eyed Dick with manic smugness.

“Ah, my guests have arrived!” He said, gesturing Jason and the whole little group closer. “I had hoped I might see you two tonight. You see, I have big plans for Batman, can’t have you interfering.”

“You know he’s got Batgirl with him, right? She’s not going to sit around waiting for your lame scheme to go off.” Jason snorted. 

“That’s the point,” Two-Face said dryly. “Two bats with one stone. Or should I say, bomb.”

The goons all guffawed, delighted by the thought of both Batman and Batgirl being blown up. Jason kept his face blank, not giving them the satisfaction of seeing him worried. They’d be fine, he knew they would be.

Two-Face went on, laughing about how stupid Batman was for going to the other one, the decoy set to blow, and taking Batgirl with him—leaving Robin and Nightwing to handle the actual one, hidden behind, as he said it, a “veneer of poverty that hides the truth quiet well, don’t you think?” As if this was a freaking casual conversation they were having. 

Jason didn’t pay much attention, honestly. He heard the words and catalogued them in case they became important, but most of his attention was split between his cuffs and Dick. Dick was standing on his own now, swaying a little in a way that Jason thought could be real but sincerely hoped not.

Most of the goons were focused on Two-Face, and of course, Two-Face was swanning around, putting on a show of how intelligent he was, outlining all of his plans like he was giving a presentation. Their eyes weren’t on the vigilantes, which was exactly what they wanted—Jason kept a straight face even as the zips cut into his skin as he wriggled himself out of their hold.

It took only a few minutes to get free, but he held still anyway as Dick escaped his own. Once they were both out, they met eyes, and Dick shallowly tipped his head, a signal to go left while he’d go right.

They didn’t have to say anything, didn’t have to communicate any more than that one nod. Jason launched himself at the nearest men, taking them down efficiently and without pausing to look at Dick. He could handle himself, and anyway, Jason could hear his voice as he taunted the goons and Two-Face himself. He was fine.

He poured his attention into taking down the large men, kicking and punching and out-smarting them. They were difficult, taking hit after hit and refusing to go down, pushing him closer to the center of the room.

He felt Dick before he saw him—their backs bumped together as they were suddenly both there in the center, Two-Face lingering by the steps, watching with a smug smile. Jason grit his teeth and shot out different gadgets, unconcerned with hitting too hard. The crunches of broken noses, the grunts of pain as his steel-toed-boots connected with vulnerable spots—he lived for it. 

Dick was right there with him, and they were finally turning the tide, finally taking the men down. As they fell, the more assured Jason felt that they could do this, that with Nightwing beside him, they would win.

His knuckles connected hard with a jaw, and the man went spinning and stumbling to the ground. Jason was just about to turn to the next one when something slammed into him— _ hard _ . He couldn’t help but fall back a few steps at the impact, his chest screaming with pain as it was hit again but on the other side.

He was being shot. His head snapped up just in time to see Two-Face escaping up the steps, the metal of a gun flashing in the dim light.

Jason fell back against the couch, which had been pushed out of the way, grasping his chest. He had kevlar on—of course he did, he wasn’t stupid, he knew the risks—but still, it hurt so badly that he didn’t even want to get up and keep fighting. And he always did that, he always got up, always fought until he physically couldn’t anymore.

Gasping, he watched as Dick quickly and intensely took out the last of the goons.

“Shit, are you okay?” Dick demanded, stepping over the groaning or prone bodies of several men. He gently pushed Jason against the back of the couch, checking for bullet holes. Thankfully, he only found them in the suit, and not piercing Jason’s skin. Still a bit frantic, Dick used his comm to reach out to Batman, only able to say, “Batman, are you—” before he was interrupted.

“Batgirl and I are on our way. ETA four minutes. Status?”

Dick relayed everything Two-Face had said, as well as the number of goons and how they were all taken care of. When he said Jason had been shot, Jason was surprised to hear the reaction it garnered from both Bruce and Babs— anxious questions if he was okay or not, the engine growling in the background as they sped even faster toward the little house.

“They’re on their way, Little Wing,” Dick said soothingly. 

“I know,” he wheezed. And then, without thinking too much about it, he added, “I had fun… tonight.”

Dick winced at his obvious pain, but said, “Yeah? Getting captured and shot by Two-Face is what the kids are considering fun these days?”

“No, I… meant fighting with… you,” Jason explained. His cheeks warmed with embarrassment and he wished he’d just never said anything at all. But, well… if he’d gotten this far, might as well say everything, right? Dick could probably tell there was more to it, anyway. “I… I felt like… we were brothers. Always saw them… working together on the streets. I want us to be brothers.”

Dick’s face, though lined with concern still, softened at his words. “Oh, kid. We are brothers, we’re both adopt—”

“No, I meant… I meant real brothers,” Jason interrupted, coughing painfully as he rushed to correct him. “The cool older brother and… the scrappy but cooler young brother.”

“You think I’m cool?” Dick smirked.

“Fuck off,” Jason wheezed, half-laughing.

“Listen, Robin,” Dick said after a minute, his hands coming to rest on Jason’s shoulders. “We  _ are  _ brothers. Real ones. I love you, you know? You’re family.”

Jason froze, his heart stuttering in his chest. He’d always wanted a brother. And even though after his mom died, he’d thought he’d never want family again, he had it. Tears—stupid baby tears—sprung to his eyes as he realized… all those brothers he’d seen on the streets or on the TV shows he watched. He’d get to have those things with Dick. Maybe. Hopefully. God, he really hoped so.

“Oh,” he choked out.

Dick smiled. “You’ll be okay. Just bruised to all hell, I think.”

Jason couldn’t reply before the door upstairs opened, and the loud sound of footsteps filled the room. Jeez, he could imagine Two-Face sitting down here earlier, just waiting for the right moment to send his men up and take Dick out.

It wasn’t long before two others were running down the steps, Bruce immediately sweeping over to the couch, stepping on the men without blinking. Crouching in front of Jason, he started taking stock of him, asking questions to both of them about the gun, the places the bullets had hit, what the pain was like, and if they’d broken through. Jason answered as best as he could, but it hurt enough that he was glad when Bruce stopped talking and started casing the entire room.

Babs came up behind Dick’s shoulder, what was visible of her face freely showing her concern. “Oh, Robin…,” she said, her hand coming up to rest on Dick’s back. His brother—his  _ brother _ —relaxed into her touch, his frown easing slightly.

“M’fine,” Jason said, because he was. Because Bruce and Babs and Dick were there and they would keep him safe. Because, even though it hurt, he knew they’d take care of him.

* * *

The next morning, he woke up in his own bed at the Manor, thankfully able to skip out on the infirmary cots down in the Cave. He stretched slightly but stopped quickly as the movement pulled and sent his chest aching again.

Hissing, he laid back into the mattress carefully, and took stock of himself. Other than his chest and his knuckles, he was fine—well, his chest and knuckles, and his incredibly dry mouth. He tried to reach over to the bedside table without moving too much, but his arm couldn’t quite make it.

“Need some water?” Dick asked, and Jason jumped slightly at the abrupt sound. His brother laughed as he grabbed a cup off the table and held it out in front of him. There was a straw sticking out—a loopy kind that Jason had always wanted but never asked for, because it was frivolous and childish—and Jason smiled. It always made him feel a little better to see it for some reason. He didn’t analyze it anymore, just took a long sip and sighed with relief.

“So,” Dick said once he was done and the cup was back in its spot. “I talked with Alfred a bit this morning—he’s still upset, by the way, he said he’d go and get Two-Face back twice as hard—” they both laughed at that. “Anyway, I talked with him about… what we were talking about before Bruce and Babs came. We’ll have to go back to the Mountain soon, but I thought maybe we could spend some time together here first. Or at the zoo. Or the library? Alfred said you liked going to the big library downtown.”

“We can go to the library,” Jason said quickly, thinking to himself,  _ and I’ll hold you to that _ . “But, um… what? Why? You—”

Dick ruffled his hair and laughed at the way Jason squawked about it. “I told you. We’re brothers. We need to spend some brother-bonding time together.”

“Oh,” Jason said, warmth—a good kind, this time—blooming in his chest. “Well, you know… we could go to the library… today. If you wanted.”

“Oh, no no no,” Dick said, standing and shaking a finger in the air like a disapproving teacher. “We’re waiting until you’re better, or Alfred will kill me.”

Jason pouted and gave him puppy-dog eyes, but it didn’t work. “Fine,” he said, “but in the meantime, I  _ refuse  _ to watch  _ Fresh Prince _ with you.”

“That’s fine,” Dick said brightly, making Jason scoot over to give him some room. “We can talk about our feelings instead.”

“No, wait, I changed my mind, we can watch your stupid show instead.”

“Too late!”


End file.
